Posted
by
msmash
on Thursday May 17, 2018 @10:00AM
from the closer-look dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has built a multibillion-dollar business out of knowing everything about its users. Now, a video produced within Google and obtained by The Verge offers a stunningly ambitious and unsettling look at how some at the company envision using that information in the future. The video was made in late 2016 by Nick Foster, the head of design at X (formerly Google X), and shared internally within Google. It imagines a future of total data collection, where Google helps nudge users into alignment with their goals, custom-prints personalized devices to collect more data, and even guides the behavior of entire populations to solve global problems like poverty and disease.

Here's the real problem: Utopian and Dystopian systems are going to use the same tools. The big divide between them will be motive and power. To illustrate, an app (really a giant AI in the background) providing alternative solutions that you can decide between could be Utopian. However, if the AI is programmed to consider the good of its creators above the good of its customers (individuals and the general society at large), this rapidly becomes Dystopian. The same is true if a political agenda outside of the consideration of individual/societal benefit is considered. And we have carefully avoided the notion of applying any generic rules to the development of AI.

We are in uncharted territory here, with private entities having this kind of information capabilities. It is nearly impossible to put the genie back in the bottle here, so we need to figure out how to control the genie, rather than it controlling us. As to how, I haven't a clue.

an app (really a giant AI in the background) providing alternative solutions that you can decide between could be Utopian.

I would suggest to you that even this level of choice is going to be largely an Illusion. The AI will simply give you a choice, one that it has identified the most likely decision you will make already (95% confidence level), the choice being an illusion of control, when the reality the AI doesn't really need your input, but asks just to be "nice".

an app (really a giant AI in the background) providing alternative solutions that you can decide between could be Utopian.

I would suggest to you that even this level of choice is going to be largely an Illusion. The AI will simply give you a choice, one that it has identified the most likely decision you will make already (95% confidence level), the choice being an illusion of control, when the reality the AI doesn't really need your input, but asks just to be "nice".

Because we know what happens when AI doesn't act "nice"...

As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you're going to do, don't we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth... --The Architect

That's irrelevant. The idea has been conceived and disseminated. The initial dissemination was among people with the power and the resources to make it a real-world experiment. Do you really Google doesn't have the arrogance, the hubris, and the power-lust to start implementing this?

This was a video that the source reports was released internally with the intention of showing unsettling things they do not plan on doing.

They may "not plan on doing", but do they "plan on not doing"? Besides, to hear Google tell it, they planned to not be evil - and look at them now.

Another non-story.

Google has a history of at least trying out the wild shit their people dream up. And I'm pretty sure the insularity of Silly Valley's denizens renders many of them immune to the consideration that using the rest of as lab rats is in any way immoral or inappropriate. Even at that, this would be a non-story only if Google wasn't already fully capable of rolling out such a scheme in a short time frame.

That's irrelevant. The idea has been conceived and disseminated. The initial dissemination was among people with the power and the resources to make it a real-world experiment. Do you really Google doesn't have the arrogance, the hubris, and the power-lust to start implementing this?

They have pretty much all the data they need to do this for some people. They have your search history, your email history, your SMS history, your phone calls and voicemails (google voice), your detailed location history, your purchase history, (google wallet) every photo you've taken in the past N years, all of your files in Google Drive, and more.

He applied linear thinking and took it to the extreme to make a good story. But societies go through cycles. The tide turned in 2016 -- perhaps as a consequence of the 2008 crash -- where people have rejected, democratically speaking, the vision that had been offered to them, of which this is a part. Try as he might have, Schmidt couldn't help Hillary win.

While that's an optimistic thought, 2016 was not a rejection of totalitarianism or post modernism, merely a rejection of the most corrupt presidential candidate in a century. There's little evidence thus far that people are rejecting identity politics, which is the lever by which modern totalitarians move themselves into power.

Orwell, an ardent socialist, saw well the dangers socialism presented for descent into totalitarianism.

I imagine that such a candidate was even offered as a choice in the first place was a direct reflection of the state we were in -- totalitarian-leaning people thought they could get away with it. If so then Hillary, endorsed by the likes of Schmidt, was part of the package that was rejected, which maybe includes identity politics as well. That's at least the rationalization for my optimism.

Good point, if debatable as to the degree of corruption. Certainly comparable.

Unfortunately, despite Trump's rejection by a plurality, he still got into office, and is even now taking open bribes.

Interesting theory. Does it involve shape-shifting Reptoids?

Had a five minute conversation with the average vote recently?

Yes, and most of them seem to openly embrace the premise of identity politics. Plenty of exceptions, though.

Nope. Not Socialism.

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.

You should read more carefully.

The book's warning was about that.

Not about socialism.

Orwell has explicitly written that 1984, like Animal Farm, was about how a socialist government can fall to totalitarianism. Just as Animal Farm was a warning about the betrayal from within, as the revolutionaries fall to the lure of power, 1984 was a warning abo

The tools of socialism are the tools of totalitarianism. The fact that some Socialist states haven't reached that point is irrelevant. But once they do reach a certain state, the process is irreversible, and unstable.

Well, I'd say that the tools of totalitarianism are the tools of socialism taken farther. E.g., Britain's panopticon and social media police are the tools of totalitarianism, but Britain was socialist for decades before things got that bad. Sure, though, merely a difference in degree, not a difference in kind.

1984 was about absolute and total control through fear, whilst Brave New World was all about social engineering. In 1984 there's also some controlling of what people thought too, but Brave New World is much closer.

Orwell's books were typically set in place long after everything was concrete and unchangable. As far as I know he didn't write a whole lot on how we got there, just where we wound up. Propoganda usually starts out subtle and slowly builds its way up to in your face you can't miss it unless you've never lived away from it.

There was also no subtlety in Google firing this person [newsweek.com]. Strange how none of you Damore cry babies ever criticize Google for that firing. Because I’m sure the lack of outrage has nothing to do with this other person’s political views.

"False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence doesn't bear because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors."

Yes, the lack of outrage has nothing to do with this other person's political views.

There was nothing subtle in the firing of James Damore. Neither is the Censorship on Facebook "subtle".

FREEDOM TECHNOLOGIES:

+Jabber
+YacY
+ssh
+scp
+phpbb
+irc

James Damore was an idiot. Your employer and coworkers don't give a fuck about your edgy opinions. They want to make as much money as possible, as easily as possible. If you get in the way of that, expect negative repercussions. Your workplace is not a debate club, social studies class, therapist's office or democracy. Shut up and do your job and things will likely work out fine.

Google and Youtube already "nudge users into alignment with their goals"

In that context, *their goals* = Google's goals.You know the "feelgood" piece at the end about solving poverty, disease and world peace.So Google can justify what they're doing by deluding themselves it will lead to "greater good".

by manipulating search results, pushing sites/producers with opinions they prefer and hiding those they disagree with.

in your context *they prefer* and *they disagree* are the users:- algorithms are optimized for one single target : bring more clicks in (because that's what makes more money going in by providing more eyeballs to sell to advertisers)- and the machine "learning/AI/NN/whatever is p

Probably so. Probably also why I'm searching with bing more often now, too.

I remember the old days when google's search interface had an actual search language, with a bunch of operators that I could use to search for what I wanted. Almost none of that exists anymore, now instead of searching for what I want, I can only search for whatever google's interests are that share half the keywords. Weak sauce. Very weak sauce.

That they consider it an improvement just guarantees that they learn my preferences by le

Start with "don't be evil"ends up with a terrifying Big Brother-y quasi police state* 'managing' everyone's behavior "for the public good, of course Mr Smith"

*you might say that Google is merely gathering data and at most 'nudging' behavior. I'd say that when Google can concatenate & save forever EVERYTHING YOU DO to a degree that would make FB and Cambridge Analytica (you know, the guys being publicly lynched for doing exactly this?) blush, and use that data against you in ways ranging from subtle to blatant including simply handing your data over to authorities, then yeah, I'm going to call that a quasi-police state whose 'public/private' partnership borders on Fascism.

One of the things that struck me most about all the panic around Cambridge Analythica is that what they did wasn't all that different from what much bigger companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter have been doing for well over a decade and making quite a lot of money on. Only significant differences I can think of are that they were much smaller, didn't actually collect the data themselves and analyzed the data just for external clients rather than their own gain.

Only significant differences I can think of are that they were much smaller, didn't actually collect the data themselves and analyzed the data just for external clients rather than their own gain.

You forgot about the part where they data was used to the possible benefit of conservative politicians instead of for liberal objectives. I'm not sure that that wasn't what goaded some folks into being really upset.

I'm pretty particularly Facebook, who is known to censor all kinds of things for various autocratic governments, has provided their services to conservatives and are just more hush-hush about it than Cambridge Analythica was.

I'm not sure you understand the issue then. It wasn't CA that people had a problem with, it was Facebook selling user data wholesale to external parties. This is vastly different than Google's business model and vastly more of a privacy problem. Facebook should have done the analysis for CA internally and only sold them the anonymized results.

I'd say that when Google can concatenate & save forever EVERYTHING YOU DO to a degree that would make FB and Cambridge Analytica (you know, the guys being publicly lynched for doing exactly this?) blush, and use that data against you in ways ranging from subtle to blatant including simply handing your data over to authorities, then yeah, I'm going to call that a quasi-police state whose 'public/private' partnership borders on Fascism.

I'm actually concerned that people's data will be used against them to derive more than just a social score like China. Imagine if the Nazis had access to what religion, ethnicity, and political leanings of all within its borders who were tracked in real time - the damage that could be wrought would be far, far greater. There is the finnancial havoc you could wreak as well given the ability to effectively use this data. There needs to be more oversight and counterbalance to this because there is no putt

Imagine if the Nazis had access to what religion, ethnicity, and political leanings of all within its borders who were tracked in real time - the damage that could be wrought would be far, far greater.

Don't worry; social justice warriors would have taken to the streets demanding safe spaces for gypsies and homosexuals.

No, it wouldn't. First off the NSA (along with other US and foreign agencies) isn't going to listen as they were doing this before the patriot act, but more importantly companies will continue to do this around the world outside European or American influence. Data collection, storage, and processing is only getting easier through moores law.

It's not my perceived problem, data security experts have been saying analogous things since forever. Second, voting democrat isn't going to work. Not only did obama extend the patriot act, he expanded spying and further weakened Habeas Corpus. Democrats haven't been a party of the people since citizens united, with a facist criminal in the whitehouse, not only did Dems expand his spying powers, but expanded his millitary capabilities as well. Why can't Dems poll better against this failed reality show

"Their stated goal is to use this power to solve global poverty and disease. By any measure, that is not evil."

Nonsense. The devil is certainly in the implementation.If one 'solved' poverty by killing all the poor people, it would CERTAINLY be evil.If one 'solved' disease by eugenically breeding superhumans, it would pretty likely be evil AF.

So no, I don't buy your initial premise, nor most of the rest of your post.

People are MOST CERTAINLY entitled to be upset at losing agency; the premise of democracy is

Poor diseased people do not buy or watch Google ads. It is in our selfish self-interest to uplift developing countries so as to create new markets where to sell our stuff, new products and services to buy off of them, add manpower to the global research effort or whatever lofty goal you prefer.

Fun fact, nobody cares about America. The world is much better off today, with a lot less people living in poverty and cushy desk jobs for people who used to farm the land with medieval tools as recently as the 80s and 90s. Most of the world is thrilled about globalization. I myself made a pile of money as an online freelancer when I was younger.In Portugal, my day job is launching web pages for the developing countries we once colonized... as part of that, I need to know where to host things and how the ne

Turns out, we're the most important country in the world, and even our enemies agree. You're just an idiot jousting with a windmill.

If you ever get internet access, check to see what exists outside your tiny country. There is a whole big world out there, and wherever you're from, your countries significance in the world is very small. Railing at clouds doesn't change that in any way; you probably have no idea that sort of more serious complaints peo

What is the maximizing stockholder wealth justification for "solving global problems like poverty and disease"?

If you can mitigate/fix/whatever disease, which makes workers less productive, and make poor workers more productive, generating more wealth for themselves and others, governments will pay for that technology.

Heck, simply knowing what the problem is gets you halfway to solving it. If the government is spending tons of money mitigating bird flu, which affects maybe a few dozen people a year, but, in aggregate, people miss hundreds of thousands of days of work from regular flu, then maybe some funds should sh

Heavily impoverished countries are generally countries where their governments would declare war on somebody trying to make their citizens lives better, not places that would pay to make their citizens lives better.

I guess this is how they're going to do it; idiots like you will get sites that explain these things at the top of your search results, and they can just increase the volume until you stop saying such stupid shit.

In poor countries that is often not the case at all, and the ruling class doesn't care about things like "less drag and deadweight losses," instead their focus is on maximizing the divide between the rich and the poor, by making sure the poor have maximized social welfare externalities. People don't care about money, they care about power, and people from rich countries measure power by their money. Governments in poor countries often measure their power

There's an old saying about democracy being "two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch".

The point being, the republic was set up to aspire to higher goals than can be achieved by pure democracy alone. We have people in power who are not bound by the will of the people, they can vote their conscience based on what they think is right. We take guidance from a bunch of enlightened people 250 years ago who set up basic guidelines to do this.

The idea of a bunch of like-minded people getting together and trying to "nudge users into alignment with their goals" is the same thing, it's "two wolves and a sheep" writ large.

We're seeing this today with the changes in user policy. YouTube used to be a bastion of free speech, everything that wasn't explicitly illegal was allowed... until that changed, and you can no longer talk about guns, or have conservative views, or cast aspersions on certain races or religions. (But it's OK when those races or religions cast aspersions back.)

Their goals are well-meaning today so that people will get behind the efforts and help, tomorrow their goals may be different.

Even when you agree with their goals, not everyone agrees with their proposed solutions - and yet they still try to influence public debate. Climate change is one of these issues, where a lot of people would agree that it's a problem and something should be done, if only the solutions weren't politically motivated.

What they are proposing is control over social thought. Unlike PACs or advertising, it's done without oversight or transparency. We complain about PACs not having enough transparency, and not knowing who pays for political ads - are we going to allow Google to be similarly opaque?

Next election it won't be "Russians hacked the election", it'll be "Google hacked the election".

Next election it won't be "Russians hacked the election", it'll be "Google hacked the election".

Next election?

What's interesting to me is that Google, Facebook, etc. have already been trying this. It's no secret who's side they have been on, and no doubt that they have been "nudging" (as blatantly as they could have? maybe not, but nudging for sure).

It may have worked, in 2012. It failed, in 2016. What interests me is why/how it failed.

Is Trump just The Mule [wikipedia.org] or something, a one time anomaly? Or are we more reliant against this stuff than previously thought?

I personally believe that we are resilient to this sort of manipulation. Humans are a naturally suspicious species, and these manipulations never seem to "feel right". For instance, my "feel" of the global warming debate:

OMG! The world is getting too hot! It's our fault! Let us have control! Wait!? What!? CO2 is a trace element that has barely moved up, and we only have a small amount of accurate data composed of a few years over a limited area. Can we have a look at your data?
HELL NO!

The best propaganda is always that which subtly manipulates the emotions of those exposed to it. "I may not remember what you said, but I remember how you made me feel" is the principle behind it, and your post seems like a fine example of it in action. Strong emotional reactions put up barriers to what would otherwise be reasonable arguments.

Their goals are well-meaning today so that people will get behind the efforts and help, tomorrow their goals may be different.

EXACTLY! This is what the SJW's asking for more government intervention never seem to grasp. Today's noble cause is tomorrow's tool of the oppressor/tyrant. Those who want to empower the government (and/or large corps with government's help) to effect social change refuse to understand this.

What they are proposing is control over social thought. Unlike PACs or advertising, it's done without oversight or transparency. We complain about PACs not having enough transparency, and not knowing who pays for political ads - are we going to allow Google to be similarly opaque?

Much of the problem comes down to the transparency/visibility of the process. Open political debate depends on knowing who is proposing what, and being able to understand their motives. When the "nudging" and other pressures are

There's an old saying about democracy being "two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch".

The old saying is from someone who doesn't understand game theory. The outcome of such a vote would be that the stronger wolf would be eaten. The weaker wolf knows that it would be dinner tomorrow if it eats the sheep, the sheep knows that it has a better chance of running away from just the weaker wolf than from either both wolves today or the stronger wolf tomorrow.

that people aren't wolves and sheep. The majority of folks aren't looking to devour each other. A small group of us are and they use a simple set of tricks (mostly Bigotry to divide the working class into manageable groups). The way out is for folks to realize this and work together. The way out is reason and science. E.g. the things that make us human.

"The point being, the republic was set up to aspire to higher goals than can be achieved by pure democracy alone. We have people in power who are not bound by the will of the people, they can vote their conscience based on what they think is right. We take guidance from a bunch of enlightened people 250 years ago who set up basic guidelines to do this."

Good post; I would only append that the FF who wrote the constitution were *very* aware of this, and (tried, at least) wrote a constitution which was in ever

the constitution and replace our crap system designed by and for wealthy landowners with actual democracy, meaning a parliamentary system. That still won't save us from a total collapse of the country's economic systems (e.g. what's going on in Venezuela right now) but it'll put a stop to the systems we built that are designed intentionally to limit democracy, to wit: The Senate & The Electoral College (there are others, it's a complex topic).

So why has Bill Gates not gone onto politics according to your mantra? It has been sometime since he left Microsoft or perhaps he can be more effective with his Foundation with fighting against malaria etc.?

Bit deeper then that. I don't know what group of people are driving it but I can describe it. The more I look at especially some of the "synergies" between laws in countries that would otherwise be completely opposite, the more it becomes obvious there has been a serious push for globalization. It's to the point we don't have one, but MANY draconian laws straight out of batshit crazy countries, being passed with little to no discussion. It's like we're being prepped for habitation by the "royal families".

I've been thinking about that, and have a possible answer.

For context, I started thinking about this when I heard that London is now 42% foreign born. (Here's info from 2011 [google.com].) England used to be predominately white and very conservative, but it's now peppered with no-go zones and full of foreign workers. Germany and Sweden are even worse, and are *still* importing refugees.

Why is this happening in Europe?

My best guess has to do with WWII, and the genocide of various peoples: Jews, but also Gypsies, Poles, A

It seems kinda scary that a big brother org could shape the environment of information so as to influence people's behaviour.

But then I remember that humans are not so simple. To us the world is not a mere stream of information, rather, it is a world of meanings which we create and organise, where meaning is within a context which is within a context and so on. Just think of a famous piece of art, and all its parodies. Consider fashion and how it changes. The way that people's aspirations and goals, their likes and dislikes, their moods and opinions, all flow in an ever-changing, re-created anew, stream of reactions and counter-reactions. Life is change. And the "facts", the "data" which tech people are so enamoured of, is only one half of reality. The other half is inter-subjective re-creative re-authored re-organising meaning-making. Today you love X and feel it is the best person or thing in the world, tomorrow you're bored with X. Show me an AI that can cope with that, and then I'll say you've passed some kind of fancy test. An AI that understands new ironies. What a joke.

It imagines a future of total data collection, where Google helps nudge users into alignment with their goals, custom-prints personalized devices to collect more data, and even guides the behavior of entire populations to solve global problems like poverty and disease.

Fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw, Google, I neither need, want, or will allow you to 'guide my behavior', so how about you go fuck yourselves, you fucking fucks?

Mad? Yes. If shit like this doesn't make you mad, then there's something wrong with you.

You want to win this game, people? DON'T PLAY AT ALL. Dump Google, dump so-called 'social media', and take your lives back. You don't need anyone to 'guide your behavior'. Google and others need to stay out of our lives.

Knowledge is power. As Google knows you better and better, they have more and more power over you. This video shows they're already considering how to exercise this power. This is the obvious next step for them (and, FWIW, I had already called it: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]).

Google, Facebook and the other data vampires really need to be stopped. The EU GDPR is a step in the right direction (though I, personally, would prefer both companies, and other privacy infringers, like Equifax, to be dismantled, or broken up). Unfortunately, the US government is already in Google and Facebook's pockets (it's not for nothing that Google is the largest corporate lobbyist in the USA), so I don't expect any useful legislative action.

I don't need or want GOOGLE, or ANY private company trying to influence my behavior in order to try to make life easier, more fair, or more pleasant, and I DON'T trust them when they claim to have lofty, ambitious, altruistic goals like ending poverty or homelessness! THOSE are things the GOVERNMENT is supposed to do, and we must all trust, rather than an unelected cartel in charge of a private corporation like Google, rather our unelected leaders, chosen in sham elections because they've demonstrated to s

I've been a web/software dev for almost 20 years... but I'm totally unqualified to run my own email server. It's not that I can't learn it, it's just that to do it RIGHT, and to truly certify that it's safe and secure (I tried running my own email once in the early 2000's and wound up getting blacklisted because I accidentally left relaying open) takes too much time and effort for the value. The same can be said about so many of these things... i

OK, so if I only want people who understand their basic choices and comprehend how their technology habits affect them personally, then idiots who think they need Brandybrand(TM)/Brandybrand(TM)/Brandybrand(TM) or Brandybrand(TM) in order to have friends will think I have no friends.

Of course. I have been modded down to oblivion whenever I have pointed it out, but this is sociopathic behavior, and we are training and indoctrinating kids with this sort of crap for decades now.

This country was formed to prevent precisely this, and to favor individual liberty over the "collective good", precisely because at some point, someone or some group will come along and attempt to define "collective good" for everyone else - which then has to be enforced at the point of

You do realise that the Republican Party under Lincoln, and later the in the 19th century was avowedly progressive, and that liberalism is what the USA was founded on? You can't just keep redefining words until they become the bogeyman you want them to be.

This is bullshit. To do any of this, you have to run a static IP, which is still prohbited by many ISPs for consumer accounts. Sure you can pay more for a business class service (more money for less speed, at least it is in my market) but your talk of 2 watts minimal cost is moot considering the additional cost of service. Running your own fileserver, discussion board, and jabber might be possible for you but impractical for most people; even those people in tech. And besides, who's going to sign in to

First off you really shouldn't comment on something you have exactly zero understanding on when it comes to hosting. As spire3661 said, dynamic DNS services are a thing and have been around for some time. Takes about 5 seconds to google that and if someone runs anything like what the OP was suggesting, they will find that out very quickly.

Now, I will give you that it is highly impractical for everyone to run their own discussion boards, Jabber, etc. and it would totally defeat the purpose of half of it.

You're telling me that I have no understanding of this??? What is the DNS propagation time for dynamic DNS changes? What is the expected gap in coverage when your IP changes relative to your expected consumer audience? Do you actually run dynamic DNS or did you just google that to throw it in my face?

That stuff could be a one click install if someone took the time to actually do it.

Then why does hardly anyone take the time to actually do it?

You need to step out of your bubble for a minute and consider: What percentage of people on this planet (or your country of choice if you like)

You're telling me that I have no understanding of this??? What is the DNS propagation time for dynamic DNS changes? What is the expected gap in coverage when your IP changes relative to your expected consumer audience? Do you actually run dynamic DNS or did you just google that to throw it in my face?

Apparently not because again, it takes 5 fucking second to look this up and read that it has a propagation time of less than a minute: https://dyn.com/dns/ [dyn.com] Given that the update is initiated from the client side in practice it is actually less most of the time. I have used it, colleagues and friends have used it, it is not that damn complicated. Stop acting like an ass because you got called out. I've implemented networking interfaces and equipment for MULTIPLE Fortune 500 customers so just shut up before

So you're telling me that DDNS propagates GLOBALLY in less than a minute? I understood that to be more like 24 hours (cite: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com])... so I stand corrected. The last time I used a dynamic DNS service was about 6-7 years ago, and it was miserably unreliable at that time. I'm glad to hear it's improved. But it's also not free. This issue like the others circles back to the pretense that this a cheap and easy solution, when it is neither.

Tolkien's contemporary and friend C.S. Lewis said this.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”